I have been determined to get back on my bike, partly for the exercise but also because my wife wants the small car for her journeys around the local lanes.  I had made sure the bike was good to go, pumped up the tyres on Monday evening (100psi!) and was ready for this morning.

The first thing I heard when I got up was the rain - not much of an issue really as it isn’t at all cold and I can dry my stuff when I get here, I just might want to stand in the shower for a bit longer.  While going through Whitecross, past the Royal Cornwall Showground, I heard the unmistakable sound of 100psi letting go rapidly.  If I have to have a puncture Whitecross is the best place to have it, the road is flat and there is a bus shelter for doing the repairs.  Fortunately I carry a spare tube so within 10 minutes I was back on the road.

As I drop into Padstow and the hotel there are a couple of very sharp bends so I crawl around those as slowly as I can, even managing to avoid the spilt fuel on the road, however as I turned into the hotel I caught the smooth lowered kerb at too much of an angle and bang, big heap on the floor!  Luckily I slid a bit so not too much of a thump but it was enough to take my watch and glasses off.  The grazes did sting a bit in the shower but I now have a few plasters on my left hand so I don’t make a mess of things and a dressing on my elbow - will just have to take things a bit easier today and see how I am for getting home tonight.

We’re all just about recovering from this year’s Macmillan Padstow to Rock swim on Sunday, nearly 300 of us made the mile long swim across the estuary despite the threatening weather we’d had over the week end and even that morning.  When I met up witht he rest of the organising committee at noon the big question was whether we would be able to go ahead with the swim: the wind was from the west most of the time but whenever a squall blew in the wind shot around to southerly, blowing up the estuary and creating some quite big waves.  We decided that we would go ahead with the event and once the elite swimmers had crossed we would ask them what they thought of the conditions.  In the event the weather gave us a real break in the late afternoon and the sun even shone on us on the way across!

The westerly wind which I mentioned earlier was a real help as it did push us along a bit, we even had a few following waves at one point but not regular enough to surf in on.  With these conditions I managed my best time for a good few years if not ever, coming across in 28 minutes.  We can never tell who has finished in what order out of the group of us who do this together but we all seemed to be around on the slipway at the same time.  We were an elite team of three as Mel had to stay and work and Cath was caught out by the early closure of the registration as we were full before the day.  Andrea’s sister who swam with us last year thought better of it this year as she is four months pregnant!
We had a star entry this year as Rick Stein braved the waters with a couple of his senior team too, all done with no publicity, just another swimmer amongst many.

The guestimate is that we will have raised over £10,000 for Macmillan Cancer Support so we are really pleased with the efforts of all of us who put in time and energy to making it happen but moreso to the many swimmers who have raised money over and above the entry fee.  One 10 year old girl managed to raise almost a £1000 on her own!

We haven’t got as far as setting a date for next year’s swim but this will be around the same time as this seems to have worked so well but will depend on the tides and the Rock Sailing Club.

If you would like to make a donation please send a cheque to Macmillan Cancer Support,

Cornwall Fundraising Office
11 Seton Business Centre
Scorrier
Redruth
Cornwall TR16 5AW

More details will be available on the Macmillan website shortly.

No, this isn’t another tale of what is growing on the garden or what I’ve found in my teenage son’s bedroom but a bit more on what we’re starting to do to reduce the amount of waste we send to landfill.

We have strated a two week trial of a cardboard baler and today we emptied the existing bin and made one and a half bales out of it, what is more the man who will collect the cardboard will do so for free! As well as the cardboard he’ll take our plastics and tins.  The more we talked about the plastics we use the more we found we can send off for re-cycling, so much stuff went thoughtlessly into the bin.  The other big thing to send away is paper and newspapers - these will go in with the carboard, we just have to find a system to make sure these all go to the right place.  I am hoping to halve the number of bins we send to landfill - in Cornwall we just don’t have the space anymore to keep burying rubbish in holes in the ground.

Once we have got this sytem more established I will have a look at the Green Tourism Business Award Scheme to see if we can get accreditation from them for the work we are doing now.  I’ll let you know of our progress.

I had an evening out last night - not bad for a Friday in the summer!  I do have to admit that it was still work related but fun never the less!  Two years ago Cath went on the RYLA course at Brimpts Farm, I wasn’t able to send anyone last year but this summer it was Amy’s turn and last night was the end of course dinner.

We were very careful not to tell Amy much about what she was going to do as this does not help at all - the whole course is about stretching yourself and developing your leadership potential so I didn’t want to give Amy time to worry about what she was going to do!  Well done to Amy for completeing the course and we’re both looking forward to seeing the results in the coming weeks and months.
When I saw Amy last night at the dinner she really was buzzing from the week of different activities and realizing what she can do.  Have a look at this link to see what sort of things they do Brimpts Farm .

I am very grateful to Padstow Rotary Club for part sponsoring Amy and to the Rotary District 1290 for organising this event.  The quality of the leaders and tutors is amazing and the speakers were truly inspirational, if we were to pay a market rate for a course like this it would be north of £3000.  I am already looking to see who I can put on the course next year!

One of the biggest assets we have here is our fantastic view out over the estuary towards Rock, we had one couple who arrived today who thought their view was being spoiled by a dead bird out on the flat roof in front of their window.  I should explain that this roof is quite a drop down from the window and so if sitting in the room looking across the water you wouldn’t see it but as soon as you stand up to look at the closer view it does come into view.

With things like this once you’ve noticed them you can’t help but look at them so we do sympathise and I decided it wouldn’t wait for the maintenance team to come in tomorrow.  Part of our health and safety policy is to restrict the amount the lower windows open so there can be no accidents and the restictors are neat plastic blocks screwed onto the window frames - over the years we have found that we have to use very special screw heads otherwise guests just take the blocks off themselves.  So armed with a drill / driver and a cardboard box I set off for the Cafe Bar roof, Tony had done a thorough job with the blocks so I had to remove 8 screws before I could get out and jump onto the roof - I suppose I ought to have had somebody else with me to make sure I was OK but…..

Onceout in the fresh air I quickly retrieved said bird and whisked him away and then had to climb back up into the room and refit all four blocks and get out before the guests came back from their arrival tea.  If anyone had seen me up there I am sure they would have been a little bemused!